MOTM

hello all,

off down to Rak Studios in London on Monday (to collect some production
equipment)
and i only just found out they have one of THOSE Yamaha synths:

all i know (from heresay) they were the pinnacle of Yamaha's analogue
expertiese, an R&D excercise based loosely on the CS80,  that there were
only four ever build - one went to Micky Most (hence it being at Rak), one
went to Abba, one went to Stevie Wonder - i've seen some footage of this,
and i suppose the last one is in the Yamaha synth bunker

bullet train spotters may correct me where i'm wrong,
sorry this may be off topic, but the list is dead quiet, and i'm dead
excited...

cheers
paul b
(spending friday night soldering oakley pcbs into a vc-xfade instead of
getting drunk in pubs like i used to...)

On Fri, 8 Sep 2000, sikorsky wrote:

> off down to Rak Studios in London on Monday (to collect some
> production equipment) and i only just found out they have one of THOSE
> Yamaha synths:
> 
> all i know (from heresay) they were the pinnacle of Yamaha's analogue
> expertiese, an R&D excercise based loosely on the CS80, that there
> were only four ever build - one went to Micky Most (hence it being at
> Rak), one went to Abba, one went to Stevie Wonder - i've seen some
> footage of this, and i suppose the last one is in the Yamaha synth
> bunker

  A Yamaha Electone GX1?  Various vintage keyboard sites seem to suggest
there were at least 7 of these built.  Debuted at 1973 NAMM.  It was the
predecessor to the CS80 (the CS80 being a chip version of most of the
GX1's discrete transistor circuits).  The GX1 must weigh over 500kg.  I'd
love to have one, but then I'd need to buy a crane to move it. Personally,
I'd settle for a CS80, but people irritatingly hold onto those things like
the pieces of gold they are. ;)

  I can still hope, though.  After all, I never thought I'd find a DX1 and
it happened...

  Yamaha still makes the Electone series, but it only gets listed on their
Japan website.  One friend living in Saitama has this one:

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/product/el/elseries/el900m.html

  It look like an organ, but it is a synth.  Still has the spring-loaded
knee controller.  (The page will probably have a lot of gibberish on it
unless you're running a Japanese character extension or J-Windows,
etc.)  The price is 1,280,000 yen (about $11,000).

Crow

/**/

In a message dated 9/8/00 11:59:51 AM, vulture.squadron@... writes:

<< all i know (from heresay) they were the pinnacle of Yamaha's analogue
expertiese, an R&D excercise based loosely on the CS80,  that there were
only four ever build - one went to Micky Most (hence it being at Rak), one
went to Abba, one went to Stevie Wonder >>

I'm pretty sure Keith Emerson had a GX1 as well.  Very cool indeed.  I 
remember seeing pictures of it and dreaming...

Ivan